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Tag: white

Returning to Subject Module, I started to explore colour in glazes on my own, to help me develop specific colour pallet for my Subject work.

Orange being the most prevalent colour in Penguin Books designs, it provides a great depth of symbolism and context associated with the cultural impact Penguin Books had in UK and other English speaking countries. It brought inexpensive fiction and non-fiction to the mass market, educating, and having impact on public debate in Britain, through its books on British culture, politics, the arts, and science.
Therefore, I’m using orange as colour of possibility for social and personal growth.
I found number of good colour pallets around orange, but one with split complementary colours: blue and purple stood out visually, and belonging in the Penguin colour scheme with dark blue representing Biography and Purple representing Essays.

I started with a search for multiple recipes of the chosen colours in EW and SW, which would give me glaze bases and colours which I could then combine and refine.

I tested 4 SW recipes with one very successful Barium based glaze producing interesting dark blues with orangey halo on White Saint Tomas, and another glossy Soto Amber with interesting double colouration, but in green and browns.

Adapting the 2 base glazes, I stained them with commercial stains, which however burned out or in case of Lilac and Rosso Red Stains just reduced in vibrancy.

Therefore, I started experimenting with combinations of oxides to mixed into my leftover stained batches, referencing oxide combination sheet in our glaze room.

In the Barium based glaze I used:
Vanadium + Cobalt Carbonate + Titanium Dioxide produced matter, more even, lighter blue.
Manganese Carbonate produced very dark uneven purple.
Vanadium + Rutile didn’t show up and the glaze remained white.

I had more luck in the EW glazes due to the simplicity of using commercial stains.

Finding another 4 different glazes, mainly Lead based, but one with Wollastonite and Strontium carbonate as fluxes which proved as most stable on different clays, pleasant surface and gloss, not settling down and good colour response.

I was able to use colorant combinations from the other glazes to adapt the non-toxic base glaze, and experiment with other combinations, to produce a range of oranges, yellows and dark blue purples.

If I had more time I would really go for a bit more scientific/controlled way of testing the additions to perfect the colours, rather than my very quick, mostly intuitive decision making.

The fact that I opted for spraying my final work, made the glaze much brighter, but at least I’m not having brush streaks or loosing any details in texture.

The latest test piece glazed with my Penguin Purple, Penguin Yellow, Penguin White and Penguin Orange applied by spraying were acceptable. The one directional application even suggested sun exposure, as if sun rays sprayed the piece, giving direction to the growth.

Large scale, monumental pots with expressive surface marks while looking at traditional techniques of Chinese Porcelain from Jingdezhen.

Felicity Aylieff set up her ceramic studio in Jingdezhen, China – the world’s capital of porcelain, and ceramics.
This gave her first hand access to the knowledge of traditional ceramic making, which she is trying to translate “radically different, contemporary, with a clear personal voice” into her own practice.

In ‘Mapping Memory’ series, Felicity Aylieff is commissioning the local craftsmen to throw monumental vases from porcelain for her, on which she can create free-form brush marks, expressive lines and grids.
The marks and movement are well rehearsed from previous tests and practice to acquire “confidence, familiarity and integrity of mark.”

To create the rich dark ink blue, as well as soft and translucent, she is using Ming Blue – a mix of cobalt and iron oxides, diluted for different tones of blue.

Visually, the surface marks resemble the skeletal parts of industrial cooling towers, chimneys or furnaces; just less structured, more expressive.
I tried my own version with inks, but trying for slightly more regular pattern of lines, resembling more structures on Bechers’ photographs.
However, I still tried to keep the free and expressive nature when using a brush.